Themes and Issues in Asian Cartooning: Cute, Cheap, Mad, and Sexy (original) (raw)
Related papers
Chinese Modern Cartoon. A transcultural approach to Modern Sketch
Altre Modernità_CONfini, CONtatti, CONfronti – 02/2018, 2018
Since the second half of the XIX century, Chinese print media have been involved in intercultural exchanges that permanently modified the editorial production in Shanghai, the Chinese capital of modern press. The evolution of the visual language of cartoon (single-panelled, mainly satirical vignette) has to be located in this context, i.e. in a liminal space characterized by the contact and the intermingling of semiotic systems as well as genres and interests. On one hand, the cartoon format is by itself a hybrid genre, born as a complex iconic-verbal construction. On the other hand, Chinese modern cartoon, which emerged and developed at the turn of the XX century along with the evolution of journalism and entertainment in semi-colonial Treaty Ports, reflects and participates into the process of bridging cultural boundaries through adaptive and integrative communication strategies (métissage). The present essay will firstly examine the asymmetrical cultural exchanges between European-American (Punch-and-Puck format) and Chinese culture, and inside the Sino-Japanese 'interliterary community' of the late XIX century. Besides synthetizing the state of the art, the paper will also elaborate on the possibility of a Punch/Puck legacy in 1920s-1930s China. Secondly, through the analysis of selected exempla from the cartoon magazine Modern Sketch (Shidai Manhua, 1934-1937), I will present significant aspects of the transcultural processes occurred in China during the golden years of cartooning.
Women in Cartoons_RefractingGender in Modern China Workshop_SOAS, London_17-19 Feb 2017
During the 1930s, Shanghai had established itself as the powerhouse of Chinese visual culture. In recent years, a growing number of scholars have been analysing the problematic role of woman’s image in Republican Shanghai’s flourishing visual culture (Kuo, 2007) and the active contribution of female artists in its process of modernization (Andrews and Shen, 1999). Since literary-historical evidences have proved the major political, social and cultural value of cartoons (satirical vignettes) during the first decades of the XX century (Hung, 1994; Wagner, 2011), the analysis of the relevant 1930s production offers a challenging starting point to address the problem of feminine visuality. From the late 1910s to the late 1930s, the “illustrated satirical magazine” was the most important stage for cartoonists to adhere to or challenge the mainstream discourse. This contribution focuses on Modern Sketch (Shidai Manhua 时代漫画), the most long-lasting and well-sold cartoon magazine of the 1930s, aiming at positioning women as subjects and objects of visual representation. First, I will situate the work of Liang Baibo (1911-1970), the only female cartoonist of the 1930s, in the broader context of Shanghai’s “cartoon world”. In second instance, drawing on different methodologies (e.g. imagology and feminist film theory), the paper will deal with the image of the female body as a “signifier of culturally significant events” (Zhang, 2007). Liang Baibo’s and other cartoonists’ exemplary works will be analysed and compared to reveal multiple and often contrasting socio-political discourses, as reflected on and by women’s bodies.
International Journal of Comic Art, 2017
Over the last few years, a growing number of scholars have been analyzing the problematic role of woman’s image in the Republican Shanghai’s flourishing visual culture of the 1920s-1930s (Kuo, 2007) and the active contribution of female artists in its process of modernization (Andrews and Shen, 1999). Literary-historical evidence has proved the major political, social and cultural value of cartoons (satirical vignettes) and that of their authors during the very same decades (Hung, 1994; Wagner, 2011). Therefore, the analysis of relevant cartoon production offers a challenging starting point to address the problem of women's representation during the 1930s from different angles. More specifically, approaching the life and works of Liang Baibo, one of the first (and few) female cartoonists and illustrators of Republican China, allows for the exploration of “gender refractions” from two complementary perspectives. The former pertains to the representation of the female artist as included in a wider, controversial discourse about the role(s) of women in 1930s Chinese socio-cultural sphere, while the latter investigates Liang Baibo’s active contribution in the process of modernization of 1930s visual culture.
Japan and Southeast Asia: Continuity and Change in Modern Times, 2014
During the 1930's, a period of flux in Japan, two comic series were published in a popular monthly magazine for boys called Shônen Kurabu (少年倶楽部). The first one is the work of Shimada Keizô (島田啓三) entitled Bôken Dankichi (冒険ダン吉) or “The Adventurous Boy, Dankichi.” The series revolves around the adventures of a Japanese boy named Dankichi who accidentally drifts to the “South Seas” and becomes king. The second is Tagawa Suihô's (田河水泡) Norakuro (のらくろ) series. The main character of this series is a stray dog named Norakuro who enters the Japanese army and despite his foibles is promoted to Captain. The campaigns of his troop have them fight against various creatures and would eventually lead them to China. In both instances, the stories portray a form of adventure somewhere and an encounter with somebody or somebodies. In the case of Dankichi, an island in the South Seas with his “Dankichi Tribe” and with Norakuro, his campaigns and his enemies. Young Japanese boys would eagerly purchase the magazine to find out what had happened to their heroes, where they ended up this time or did they win against so-and-so. In the process, these children develop an image of the worlds of Dankichi and Norakuro. Through a study of a popular medium, such as comics, which was utilized to propagate the imageries, one can understand the machinations of Japanese society during the 1930's. Using the comic series, the paper would like to study and analyze how the “other” was illustrated and depicted in the stories in the hopes of uncovering whether the consumption of these representations had an impact on Japanese society during the 1930's.
Cuteness as Counterculture in Anthropomorphic Japanese Animation
Ekphrasis. Images, Cinema, Theory, Media, 2021
Big eyes, flying tanukis, talking teddy bears, angry red pandas, and the list carries on. Anthropomorphic characters laugh and cry, search for retribution, fight evil magicians, try to stop experiments, fall in love, or just struggle with work while reenacting our human emotions on the big screen; usually, in the Japanese animation context, in kawaii or “cute” form. Although the aesthetics and use of kawaii has gained its place in the mainstream consumption of Japanese popular culture as “pure,” “childlike,” or “adorable,” this artistic and narrative device has a long history of both consumption and subversion when exposed as empty, superficial, and flawed. In this paper, I propose critically exploring the “cuteness” or kawaii tradition in Japanese animation, as a site of resistance and a form of counterculture. Through a close reading of such animated series as Aggretsuko (2018), BNA: Brand New Animal (2020) or Dorohedoro (2020), I argue that their anthropomorphic characters and disturbing narratives transgress once more into the realm of the opposite. Sharon Kinsella highlights cute style as “anti-social,” and a means to escape real life (1995). I pose the question: can it function as a form of social, ideological and political critique? Scott McCloud’s concept of iconic abstraction (1994) becomes then instrumental in analyzing these characters through the effects of the non-human representation in comic books, as a form of drawing attention to the essential “meaning” of that representation. I further argue that the Japanese animations above shed light on the dominant narratives in the public sphere while questioning their legitimacy, thus transforming kawaii in a subversive mechanism.
Studies in Visual Arts and Communication: an international journal Vol 4, No 1 (2017), 2017
By definition, the cartoon (satirical, single-panelled vignette) "reduces complex situations to simple images, treating a theme with a touch of immediacy. A cartoon can mask a forceful intent behind an innocuous facade; hence it is an ideal art of deception " (Hung, 1994:124). As well as their western counterparts, Chinese cartoonists have always based much of their art on the strong socio-political potential of the format, establishing a mutual dependence of pictographic material and press journalism. From a media perspective, the present paper shows how Chinese cartoon developed from 1920s-1930s society ̶ when the " modern magazine " was the most important reference and medium for this newly-born visual language – to the present. Cyberspace has recently become the chosen space for Chinese cartoonists' visual satire to take part in an international public discourse and in the " online carnival " (Herold and Marolt, 2011:11-15), therefore replacing magazines and printed press. Through emblematic exempla and following the main narrative of " animal symbolism and allegory " , this paper intends to connect the historical background with cartoonists' critical efficiency, communicative tools and peculiar aesthetics, aiming at answering to questions such as: how Chinese modern cartoon changed, from the first exempla conveyed in " modern magazines " to the latest online expressions? Is its original power of irreverence still alive and how did it survive? How modern cartoonists (Lu Shaofei, Liao Bingxiong) and contemporary cartoonists (Rebel Pepper, Crazy Crab, Ba Diucao) have been dealing with governmental intervention and censorship?
Southeast Asian Review of English, 2018
This Special Issue brings together a diverse collection of papers analysing children's literature, film, and animation, all of which represent aspects of Asian culture and the Asian diaspora. Importantly, the issue provides a forum through which a range of academics and scholars-both from within and from beyond Asia-can bring greater attention to children's written and visual texts, reflect upon the social and cultural mores represented in those texts, and discuss the issues that concern Asian children and society, both past and present. The broad spectrum of children's and young adults' literature and other forms of visual media constitute categories that are not easily defined, crossing over as they do with numerous other genres and subgenres, just as the definition of Asia in itself is also tenuous. Yet, amid these broad referential points, connections may be made. The prevailing threads that run through many of these stories are the changing issues that confront children in the contemporary societies of Asia, and despite the concerns often represented in the narratives, concerns which express themselves socio-culturally and often in relation to gender or economic imbalances, the clearest unifying thread is the underlying belief in the need for human connection and guidance. As such, though the issues raised in these essays and in the texts they discuss may from their content often be seen to be regional and localised, they are, in many ways, very much universal in their import.
Language and Cartoon, A Necessary Wedlock: A Linguistic Review of Selected Jimga’s Cartoons
The question of the essence and function of art to the society has already been ethically attempted world over. And it has been seen that art does play a very important role in the development of the entire human race. One of the towering factors that that have aided this development is the fact that the ingredients of development employed by arts to develop the society is also acquired from the same. One can then opine that art receives from the society, just to give back, a filtered, refined and purified message. Different artist take on diverse methods of purification and delivery in a way that best suits them. A very important part of the purification processes is the various tools that are used to stir the pot-pourri that had been made available to the artist. In line with what this write-up is all about, we shall dwell much on the juxtaposition of visual and language ingredients of the artist.